The Discovery and Conquest of the Molucco and Philippine Islands.

Leonardo de Argensola, Bartolomé, 1562-1631Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5
Word count
917K words
Chapters
92

Tags

English Originals World History Historical ReappraisalMilitary StrategyPortrait GalleryAdventure JourneyExotic CultureSocial ObservationCross-Cultural View

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Discovery and Conquest of the Molucco and Philippine Islands.Author: Leonardo de Argensola, Bartolomé, 1562-1631,Language: English, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: Aug 12, 2013

Editor's review

This book is the English translation of Spanish scholar Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola's work on the discovery and conquest of the Molucco and Philippine Islands, a Project Gutenberg public-domain book. Its value lies in preserving a first-hand narrative of Spanish expansion in Southeast Asia from the late sixteenth to the early seventeenth century, offering reference value for understanding early colonial history, the spice trade, and the opening of trans-Pacific routes. The text carries a distinctly period stance and a Eurocentric perspective, requiring critical reading. It is suitable as supplementary material for courses on Southeast Asian history and colonial history, or for slow reading by those interested in primary documents of the Age of Exploration. The e-edition is convenient for searching and comparison, but has no modern annotations; using it alongside maps and general histories is recommended.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Prepare a sixteenth-century map of Southeast Asia and mark the archipelagos and routes mentioned as you read.
  2. After each chapter, note the narrator's stance and sources of information, distinguishing factual statements from period bias.
  3. Read in comparison with contemporaneous Dutch and Portuguese accounts to form a multi-angle understanding.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92

FAQ

Is this book an original manuscript or a modern research work? It is an English translation of Argensola's early work, a public-domain e-book released by Project Gutenberg, not a research monograph by modern scholars, and therefore has no contemporary annotations, introduction, or bibliography.
How difficult is the English, and is it suitable for non-native readers? The text is a translation in an early modern English style, with long sentences and many proper names, posing a certain challenge for non-native readers. Upper-intermediate to advanced English reading ability is recommended, along with dictionary and map tools.
What historical background should I understand beforehand? It is advisable to first learn about the sixteenth-century Spanish-Portuguese rivalry over the Spice Islands, Magellan's route, and the early period of colonization in the Philippines, so as to better understand the characters, place names, and sequence of events in the book.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Leonardo de Argensola, Bartolomé, 1562-1631 Author · Spanish · 1562–1631

Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola (1562–1631) was a Spanish poet and historian who served as chronicler of Aragon. His surviving works are few, and publicly available information about him is limited, centering mainly on historical writing about Spanish overseas expansion. His representative work, The Discovery and Conquest of the Molucco and Philippine Islands, describes the discovery and conquest of these regions against the background of Spanish navigation, colonization, and missionary activity in Southeast Asia during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Following the tradition of Spanish chronicles of the time, the book emphasizes chronological order and factual record in a restrained tone, combining historical value with literary quality. It is an important reference for the study of early Spanish activity in Southeast Asia and reflects the author's approach as an official chronicler.